John Bellamy Foster

Category: Books

Books

Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique

Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique [co-authored with Paul Burkett] (Boston: Brill, 2016, hardcover; Chicago: Haymarket Press, March 2017, paperback), 308 pp.

A decade and a half ago John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett introduced a new, revolutionary understanding of the ecological foundations of Marx’s thought, demonstrating that Marx’s concepts of the universal metabolism of nature, social metabolism, and metabolic rift prefigured much of modern systems ecology. Ecological relations were shown to be central to Marx’s critique of capitalism, including his value analysis. Now in Marx and the Earth Foster and Burkett expand on this analysis in the process of responding to recent ecosocialist criticisms of Marx. The result is a full-fledged anti-critique—pointing to the crucial roles that dialectics, open-system thermodynamics, intrinsic value, and aesthetic understandings played in the original Marxian critique, holding out the possibility of a new red-green synthesis.

January 1, 2016
The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition)
“The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy,” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2014), 320 pp.

In 1966, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy published Monopoly Capital, a monumental work of economic theory and social criticism that sought to reveal the basic nature of the capitalism of their time. Their theory, and its continuing elaboration by Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, and others in Monthly Review magazine, influenced generations of radical and heterodox economists. They recognized that Marx’s work was unfinished and itself historically conditioned, and that any attempt to understand capitalism as an evolving phenomenon needed to take changing conditions into account. Having observed the rise of giant monopolistic (or oligopolistic) firms in the twentieth century, they put monopoly capital at the center of their analysis, arguing that the rising surplus such firms accumulated—as a result of their pricing power, massive sales efforts, and other factors—could not be profitably invested back into the economy. Absent any “epoch making innovations” like the automobile or vast new increases in military spending, the result was a general trend toward economic stagnation—a condition that persists, and is increasingly apparent, to this day. Their analysis was also extended to issues of imperialism, or “accumulation on a world scale,” overlapping with the path-breaking work of Samir Amin in particular.

John Bellamy Foster is a leading exponent of this theoretical perspective today, continuing in the tradition of Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital. This new edition of his essential work, The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism, is a clear and accessible explication of this outlook, brought up to the present, and incorporating an analysis of recently discovered “lost” chapters from Monopoly Capital and correspondence between Baran and Sweezy. It also discusses Magdoff and Sweezy’s analysis of the financialization of the economy in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, leading up to the Great Financial Crisis of the opening decade of this century. Foster presents and develops the main arguments of monopoly capital theory, examining its key exponents, and addressing its critics in a way that is thoughtful but rigorous, suspicious of dogma but adamant that the deep-seated problems of today’s monopoly-finance capitalism can only truly be solved in the process of overcoming the system itself.

Foster’s book is brilliantly successful elaborating Marxian political economy and the tendency of monopoly-finance-imperialist capitalism toward stagnation. The book deserves a wide (re-)readership and a new generation of theorists to appreciate the explanatory power of Marxian political economy.

—Hans G. Despain, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

A clear and powerful explanation of the Marxian political economy, this book is a welcome addition for those who are interested in, or have serious concerns about, monopoly capital as well as economic stagnation, financial instability, and the futures of both capitalism and socialism.

—CHOICE

Essential reading for those attracted by the monopoly capital school.

—The Economic Journal

A clear and forceful elaboration of basic Marxist concepts such as economic surplus, capital accumulation, imperialism, and value.

—Labour/Le Travail

A literate defense of the … Marxian analytical framework of Baran, Sweezy, Kalecki, and Steindl …. Foster develops an improved version of Baran and Sweezy’s … model of of accumulation by adding theoretical refinements.

—Cooperative Economic News Service

Editions:
Second edition (2013), includes new introduction to second edition by author, pp. 22

“Introduction to Second Edition” published in Monthly Review 65, no. 3 (July-August 2013), pp. 107-34.

Japanese language edition, (Tokyo: Uni Agency, 1988).

Translations:

Chinese Translation of “Introduction to Second Edition” forthcoming in Foreign Theoretical Trends.
April 1, 2014
The Endless Crisis
“The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China,” (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012), 227 pp.

Introduction to book excerpted as “How Monopoly-Finance Capital Leads to Economic Stagnation,” Utne Reader, October 2012.

Translations:
- Polish translation, Book and Press/Le Monde Diplomatique Polish Book Series, 2013;
- German translation (Hamburg: Laika Verlag)
- Arabic translation by Fuad Nassar Center, Ramallah, Palestine.
The days of boom and bubble are over, and the time has come to understand the long-term economic reality. Although the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, hopes for a new phase of rapid economic expansion were quickly dashed. Instead, growth has been slow, unemployment has remained high, wages and benefits have seen little improvement, poverty has increased, and the trend toward more inequality of incomes and wealth has continued. It appears that the Great Recession has given way to a period of long-term anemic growth, which Foster and McChesney aptly term the Great Stagnation.

This incisive and timely book traces the origins of economic stagnation and explains what it means for a clear understanding of our current situation. The authors point out that increasing monopolization of the economy—when a handful of large firms dominate one or several industries—leads to an over-abundance of capital and too few profitable investment opportunities, with economic stagnation as the result. Absent powerful stimuli to investment, such as historic innovations like the automobile or major government spending, modern capitalist economies have become increasingly dependent on the financial sector to realize profits. And while financialization may have provided a temporary respite from stagnation, it is a solution that cannot last indefinitely, as instability in financial markets over the last half-decade has made clear.

Reviews:

The authors carefully develop a powerful case that the normal state of ‘really existing capitalist economies,’ increasingly dominated by multinational megacorporations along with associated financialization, is not growth with occasional recession, but rather stagnation with occasional escapes that have diminishing prospects. Hence an ‘endless crisis,’ endless in both time and space, including China. And a crisis that is heading towards disaster unless there is a radical change of course. This valuable inquiry should be carefully studied and pondered, and should be taken as an incentive to action.

—Noam Chomsky

In the distinguished tradition of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, Foster and McChesney here combine grim analysis with bleak prognosis, reminding us that monopoly power disappeared from the textbooks but not from real life. This is a useful book for anyone raised on the reflexive American optimism of the post-war years.

—James K. Galbraith, author, Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis

The Endless Crisis provides a compelling discussion of the central economic reality of our time: that the Wall Street collapse and Great Recession of 2007-09 was a human calamity whose effects are ongoing. Foster and McChesney explore the underlying causes of the crisis as a result of the normal operations of capitalism in its contemporary neoliberal variant. Their discussions on financialization, monopoly power, imperialism, and other topics all provide opportunities for us to think more clearly about what is wrong with the societies we live in and how to advance a transformative political project in behalf of equality and social justice.

—Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

The Endless Crisis goes beyond being thought-provoking, well-written, and interesting. In many respects it is chilling in its analysis of the evolution of global capitalism and the contours of the global class struggle. This book constitutes a polemic not only with neo-liberal theory but with those who believe that tinkering with the worst aspects of capitalism will resolve the crisis. Foster and McChesney take the reader into the world of the global monopolies and the plutocracies that they have spawned. When you finish this book you cannot but ask the question: ‘When do we get serious about a strategy for the Left to respond to the system of modern day robber-barons that Foster and McChesney so well analyze?’

—Bill Fletcher, Jr., BlackCommentator.com; author of Solidarity Divided and ‘They’re Bankrupting us’ And Twenty Other Myths about Unions

The most important book yet to appear on stagnation, the central problem of modern economic reality. Essential reading for serious liberal, heterodox, radical, and all open-minded economic thinkers.

—Gar Alperovitz, author, America Beyond Capitalism; Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy, University of Maryland

John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney’s The Endless Crisis very effectively integrates analysis of the development, character, and impact of monopoly-finance capital, which includes the now global and immense reserve army of labor, and with stagnation tendencies harder and harder to overcome. They also demonstrate well the urgency of working class organization on a global basis.

—Edward S. Herman, professor emeritus of finance, the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

This is a most remarkable and important book. It is political economy at its best. It offers a sophisticated explanation of the socio-economic crisis facing the global and domestic economies. The authors further argue that the socio-economic crisis cannot be resolved without a total transformation away from the oligopolistic capitalistic system. The work of Foster and McChesney can be embraced by all heterodox political economy traditions.

—Hans G. Despain, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

A focused and muscular work that ranks alongside the works of John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Sweezy, Paul Baran and other great political economists who were unafraid to deliver sobering criticisms of modern capitalism. It is a robustly researched testament to the enduring relevance of Marxist theory in the 21st century.

—Philip Louro, New Politics

The Marxist perspective, exemplified in a new book by John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney, is also useful. This argues that the strong western growth rates in the middle of the 20th century were something of a mirage . . . The result has been a declining trend rate of growth, and the increased financialisation of western economies as the surpluses have been re-cycled through the banks in a search for yield. Hence the Latin American debt crisis. Hence the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Hence the inability of the global economy to emerge from its torpor.

—Larry Elliott, the Guardian

Read a review by Bernard D’Mello of The Endless Crisis in Economic & Political Weekly on MRzine.org
October 5, 2012
What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism
“What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen’s Guide to Capitalism and the Environment,” (co-authored with Fred Magdoff, Magdoff listed first, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), 187 pp.

There is a growing consensus that the planet is heading toward environmental catastrophe: climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, global freshwater use, loss of biodiversity, and chemical pollution all threaten our future unless we act. What is less clear is how humanity should respond. The contemporary environmental movement is the site of many competing plans and prescriptions, and composed of a diverse set of actors, from militant activists to corporate chief executives.

This short, readable book is a sharply argued manifesto for those environmentalists who reject schemes of “green capitalism” or piecemeal reform. Environmental and economic scholars Magdoff and Foster contend that the struggle to reverse ecological degradation requires a firm grasp of economic reality. Going further, they argue that efforts to reform capitalism along environmental lines or rely solely on new technology to avert catastrophe misses the point. The main cause of the looming environmental disaster is the driving logic of the system itself, and those in power—no matter how “green”—are incapable of making the changes that are necessary.

What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism tackles the two largest issues of our time, the ecological crisis and the faltering capitalist economy, in a way that is thorough, accessible, and sure to provoke debate in the environmental movement.

Reviews:

I’m not sure who needs to read this relentlessly persuasive book more: environmentalists who imagine we can solve the ecological crisis without confronting capitalism, or leftists who have yet to recognize the ecological crisis as the highest expression of the capitalist threat. How about both, and then some. Indispensable.

—Naomi Klein, author, The Shock Doctrine

As we journey through the early stages of the end of the industrial mind an ecological world view awaits us on the horizon. We have no map, but rather a wildly oscillating compass needle. These two bold grown-ups, old hands at hard thinking, are steadying the needle. This book properly pondered will reveal that capitalism is the product of abstract thought whose particularity is to propel us to the edge of humanity’s version of a Petri dish.

—Wes Jackson, President, The Land Institute

With the debate about environmental collapse so dominated by technological, population, and market-based solutions, this book is a powerful antidote. Only by addressing global capitalism can we hope to avert catastrophe. Magdoff and Foster have written an up-to-date, accessible, and comprehensive account of a grim situation, yet manage to inspire the reader with their call for an ‘ecological revolution,’ already in process in parts of the world. An essential book for classroom use, to give to friends who need to learn more about what’s happening to the planet, or for the nightstand as a continual reminder of what’s really important.

—Juliet Schor, author, True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically-Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy

A superb introduction to an essential conversation about capitalism’s ability to coexist with environmental progress. Magdoff and Foster do an excellent job of addressing the important issues at stake in this debate.

—Michael T. Klare, author, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy

Environmental destruction isn’t caused by ignorance or mistaken policies: it is the inevitable result of a social and economic system that puts profit before people and must constantly expand to survive. In this short and clearly written book, Magdoff and Foster explain why that is, why there can be no permanent solution to the environmental crisis so long as capitalism continues, and why greens and socialists must join forces to make an ecological revolution. Every socialist should buy two copies: one to read and learn from, and another to give to a friend who wants to go beyond environmental concern to effective action.

—Ian Angus, editor, Climate and Capitalism

Translations:
- Turkish translation by Original Aksakal, Trails Publishing (2014).
- German translation, Hamburg: Laika-Verlag, 2012.
June 1, 2011
The Ecological Rift
“The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War with the Earth,” (co-authored with Brett Clark and Richard York, Foster listed first, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 544 pp.

Editions:
- German edition, (Hamburg: Laika-Verlag, 2011).
Translations:

Portuguese translation from Expressao Popular 2015.

Swedish translation of introduction available at Lalit magazine.

French translation of the chapter, “The Ecology of Consumption,” in Ecologie et Politique 43 (2012), pp. 109-30.

Winner of the 2010 Gerald L. Young Book Award, bestowed by the Society for Human Ecology

Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision—if we don’t alter course.

In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion.

Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.

Reviews:

This book is desperately needed, because it ends any illusion that we can solve our pressing environmental crises within the same system that created them. With tweaking the system—using incremental market-based strategies—off the table, we can put our efforts into genuine, lasting solutions.

—Annie Leonard, author and host, Story of Stuff

Marx’s concept of ‘metabolic rift’ in the circulation of soil nutrients between countryside and town is generalized by Foster, Clark, and York to an insightful Marxist analysis of the current ecological rift between modern capitalism and the ecosystem. It is a scholarly, well-referenced, and important contribution.

—Herman E. Daly, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and author, Beyond Growth

This important book treats industrial capitalism as the globally destructive force that it is, and powerfully points the way toward, as the authors put it, ‘universal revolts against imperialism, the destruction of the planet, and the treadmill of accumulation.’ We need these revolts if we are to survive. This book is a crucial part of that struggle.

—Derrick Jensen, author, Endgame and The Culture of Make Believe

This timely new work promises to become a basic resource in understanding the incompatibility between capitalism and ecology, and also in arguing for the ecological dimensions of any future socialism.

—Fredric Jameson, Professor, Duke University; author, Valences of the Dialectic

The Ecological Rift deserves to—and needs to—become a classic in its field.

—Simon Butler, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
October 20, 2010
The Ecological Revolution
“The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet,” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009), 319 pp.
Awards:

Winner of the Greald L. Young Book Award of the Society for Human Ecology, 2010.

Editions:

Edited French-language editon, entitled Marx Écologiste. Amsterdam Press, 2011, includes chapters 8-11.

Translations:

German translation Hamburg: Laika-Verlag, 2012.

Bangla translation being published in India by Cornerstone Books, Kharagpur.

Final chapter reprinted in Briarpatch magazine, July/August 2009.

Korean translation being translated by Dae-Han Song for the Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements.

Chinese translation forthcoming from Renmin Press.

Since the atomic bomb made its first appearance on the world stage in 1945, it has been clear that we possess the power to destroy our own planet. What nuclear weapons made possible, global environmental crisis, marked especially by global warming, has now made inevitable—if business as usual continues.

The roots of the present ecological crisis, John Bellamy Foster argues in The Ecological Revolution, lie in capital’s rapacious expansion, which has now achieved unprecedented heights of irrationality across the globe. Foster compellingly demonstrates that the only possible answer for humanity is an ecological revolution: a struggle to make peace with the planet. Foster details the beginnings of such a revolution in human relations with the environment which can now be found throughout the globe, especially in the periphery of the world system, where the most ambitious experiments are taking place.

This bold new work addresses the central issues of the present crisis: global warming, peak oil, species extinction, world water shortages, global hunger, alternative energy sources, sustainable development, and environmental justice. Foster draws on a unique range of thinkers, including Karl Marx, Thomas Malthus, William Morris, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Rachel Carson, Vandana Shiva, and István Mészáros. The result is a startlingly radical synthesis, which offers new hope for grappling with the greatest challenge of our age: what must be done to save the earth for humanity and all living species.

Reviews:

In this time of growing ecological and economic crisis, John Bellamy Foster’s voice stands out like no other. In his new book, The Ecological Revolution, he demonstrates that questions of ecology cannot be separated from questions of economics, and that building a truly sustainable future means putting people and the planet before profit.

—Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

Foster is the most systematic thinker on red-green politics writing today—and he is quite clear about What is to be done! In these essays, he applies Marx’s theory of metabolic rift to elucidate a variety of contexts—the Pentagon’s pursuit of oil, neoliberalism and the Jo’burg Manifesto, the poverty of contemporary sociology, imperialism and ecological debt, critique of the New Sustainability Paradigm—all the while keeping his synthesis of historical scholarship, natural scientific detail, and Marxist theory readily accessible to a wide readership. Here is reason and discipline driven by passion and care.

—Ariel Salleh, Research Associate in Political Economy, at the University of Sydney

Author of Ecofeminism as Politics, Editor of Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice, and Co-editor of the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism

In The Ecological Revolution, John Bellamy Foster rightly shows the inadequacy of the technological approaches to which the capitalist response to the ecological crisis is limited, raising the question of a wider revolution in ecology and community. In the process he puts to rest the widely held assumption that Marx and Marxists have little to contribute on the ecological crisis. His book demonstrates that Marx addressed the ecological issues with keen insight and that the historical materialist ecological tradition is alive and relevant today.

—John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology

Co-author with Herman Daly of For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, The Environment, and a Sustainable Future

For fifteen years, in the books The Vulnerable Planet, Marx’s Ecology, and Ecology Against Capitalism, Foster has warned us of capitalist ecological catastrophe. With accessibility, grace, and a powerful intellectual punch, this new collection tackles the neoconservative petro-military complex of the Bush years sandwiched between Clinton-Gore-Obama’s pernicious eco-neoliberalism. Foster’s searing denunciations of environmental commodification give us confidence to fight bourgeois economic ideology—from the likes of Thomas Friedman, William Nordhaus, Larry Summers, and Nick Stern—and to demand an eco-socialist future.

—Patrick Bond, senior professor of development studies

University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

This book is a major achievement. It combines enormous breadth of scholarship with consummate theoretical integration to produce a powerful political argument. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of humanity and the planet – that is, everyone!

—Ted Benton, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
February 9, 2009
The Great Financial Crisis
“The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences,” (coauthored with Fred Magdoff, Foster listed first, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009), 160 pp.

Editions:
- Indian edition (English) published by Cornerstone Books, Kharagpur, 2009.
Translations:
Korean translation from Eulyoo Publishers.

Czech language edition published by Grimmus, Czech Republic, 2009.

Spanish translation, Fondo De Cultura Económico (Spain), 2009.

Bangla translation by Farooque Chowdhury (Dhaka: Shahitya Prakash, 2011).

Arabic translation by Ateyyah Kareem Al Zafiri (Afaq Educational Services Company, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2013).

Selected chapters appear in Kapitalizmin Finansal Krizi (Turkish), edited by Prof. Dr. Abdullah Ersoy (Ankara, Turkey: Imaj Publishing, 2011), 330pp.

The bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing financial debacle have left most people, including many economists and financial experts asking: Why did this happen? If they had been reading Monthly Review, and were familiar with such articles as “The Household Debt Bubble,” “The Explosion of Debt and Speculation,” and “The Financialization of Capitalism,” they would not have needed to ask. In their new book, The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster and long-time Monthly Review contributor, Fred Magdoff, update this analysis, exploring the whole course of what is now known as “the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression”: from the debt explosion and housing bubble to the subprime debacle and federal bailout. They argue that this latest financial crash, although greater than any since 1929, is itself a symptom of deeper problems connected to the stagnation of the “real” or productive economy of mature capitalism. Financial bubbles have become the chief means of countering stagnation, but these inevitably burst, bringing the underlying economic problems back to the surface. The only recourse of the system: new and bigger bubbles, leading, as they too pop, to still greater financial crises and worsening conditions of production—in what has now become a vicious cycle.

With this as their key, Foster and Magdoff are able to examine the complex interconnections associated with rising debt, weakening production and investment, stagnant wages, burgeoning unemployment, rapidly growing class inequality, spiraling global economic instability, and spreading militarism and imperialism. At the center of the story is the latest phase of capitalism, “monopoly-finance capital,” that has generated a giant casino economy and promotes enormously exorbitant, exploitative, and corrupt practices as well as violence abroad—all geared to finding and protecting profitable ways to invest the corporate capital surplus. Meanwhile, the real, pressing needs of most people in the society go unaddressed. The only genuine way out of trap, The Great Financial Crisis argues, is the promotion of those very measures—such as massively expanding socially useful public spending, improving the security of the working class, and democratizing ownership of productive property—that are invariably opposed by the current system of wealth and power. If the legendary Mother Jones was right, and we must educate ourselves for the coming struggle, then this book is today’s most essential reading.

Reviews:

…an insightful account of the roots of the crisis.

—Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects

With all the charges of ‘socialist’ hurled at Barack Obama from the howling back benches, I decided it was time to find out what some real socialists are saying about the crisis of monopoly capitalism. It’s a short book long on insight.

—Bill Moyers, on selecting the book for his booklist

In this timely and thorough analysis of the current financial crisis, Foster and Magdoff explore its roots and the radical changes that might be undertaken in response. . . . This book makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing examination of our current debt crisis, one that deserves our full attention.

—Publishers Weekly

Those interested in the Marxist perspective should get hold of The Great Financial Crisis. . . . It is a fascinating read.

—Larry Elliot, economics editor, The Guardian

Follows Marxist writers Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy in arguing that ‘stagnation’ is the normal state of capitalism (or what the present authors term ‘monopoly-finance capital’). To preserve ‘growth,’ finance becomes increasingly decoupled from investment in real things, but in doing so it creates bubbles, and we all know what happens when they are pricked … Foster and Magdoff did call out an imminent collapse of the US “household debt bubble” as far back as spring 2006.

—The Guardian

I like to hope that some members of the economics profession, some journalists who routinely interpret economics for the general public, and even (could we hope?) some public officials unafraid to think what had previously been the unthinkable (namely that radical leftists have something useful to say about the U.S. economy and economic policy) will take up this book and engage with it. . . . We ignore the arguments of this book and other dissenting economists at our peril.

—Michael Meeropol, Challenge magazine

The challenge for the left is to articulate both the temporary nature of capitalism’s fixes and of capitalism itself in accessible terms. This book is a useful weapon for all who strive to do so.

—Morning Star

Everyone at last knows we are in a great financial crisis. Foster and Magdoff have seen it coming for some time now. If you want a clear and cogent explanation of the reality of our debt crisis and what might be done about it, this is your book.

—Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University

The Great Financial Crisis will be extremely useful for all who are trying to sort out the meaning of the most serious crisis U.S. and global capitalism has faced in eighty years. Few today are able both to make sense of the details of the modern ‘financial architecture’ that turned a predictable burst in the U.S. housing bubble into a full scale financial meltdown, and also to bring an historical perspective stemming from the work of Keynes, Hansen, Steindl, Kalecki, Minsky, Galbraith, and of course Marx, Sweezy, and Harry Magdoff. Because the authors could draw on their own excellent coverage of the lead up to the crisis in the pages of Monthly Review magazine, we have an invaluable book available to us much sooner than would otherwise be possible.

—Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics, American University

Those of us who are dissatisfied with the analyses of the financial-economic meltdown of 2008 that attribute it to easily remediable ‘mistakes’ on the part of financial institutions, regulators, or policy-makers can learn a lot from John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff’s The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences. Foster and Magdoff follow up the theses of Paul Sweezy, Paul Baran, and Harry Magdoff that diagnose the structural problems of U.S. capitalism in its chronic tendency toward stagnation rooted in inadequate business investment and leading to slow growth, unemployment of labor, and low utilization of capital. This book makes the case that the excesses of financialization and the widening inequality of income distribution are themselves indirect effects of stagnation in the real economy, and explains with sobering clarity why the roots of this crisis may turn out to be deep and difficult to address with conventional policy measures.

—Duncan K Foley, Leo Model Professor of Economics

New School for Social Research

Much of the analysis of the latest economic meltdown has been confined to explanations about the housing bubble and bust. In The Great Financial Crisis, Foster and Magdoff take a broader approach, presenting a rigorous and sorely needed historical and forward-looking perspective of the capitalist system out of control. With intricate detail, Foster and Magdoff contextualize the housing debt and speculative bubble within its rightful place at the core of an accelerated period of the financialization of capital, eloquently arguing why a people-first, or socialistic, approach to this crisis is the most logical way to stabilize the general economy.

—Nomi Prins, author of Other People’s Money and Jacked

Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy, to whom this book is dedicated, analyzed the financial crisis as inseparable from the tendency to stagnation of monopoly capital. The present book is written in the same spirit and brings their approach fully up to date under the circumstances of ‘monopoly-finance capital.’ It underlines that, whatever might be attempted today, the necessarily recurring crisis is bound to get worse without remedying the causes of stagnation. Thus Foster and Fred Magdoff rightly stress that ‘the answer lies in a truly revolutionary reconstruction of the entire society.’ Their book is a worthy memorial to Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy.

—István Mészáros, author of The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time

and Beyond Capital

Foster and Magdoff’s very readable account of the crisis merits close and wide attention. Their analysis of consumer debt burdens is the perfect antidote for everyone who is tired of hearing how ‘we’ went on a consumption binge, and their historically sensitive discussions of the roots of the crisis are fresh and provocative.

—Thomas Ferguson, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Author of The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems

John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff’s book on ‘The Great Financial Crisis’ is an excellent example for the usefulness of studying Marx’s works and that of other Marxist political economists, e.g. the writings of Paul M. Sweezy and Harry Magdoff, in order to better grasp the dynamics and contradictions of the financial turmoil and its implications for social conflict. The disastrous contemporary financial crisis cannot be understood as the consequence of a ‘wrong regulation’ of the world of finance. It is an emanation of the ‘real’ accumulation process of financialized monopoly capital.

—Elmar Altvater, Otto-Suhr-Institute of the Free University of Berlin

Foster and Magdoff’s new book presents a sharp and stimulating analysis of the historical origins and structural roots of the current financial crisis. The authors argue that the implosion is a logical consequence of the contradictions of monopoly finance capital—contradictions that are reflected in the twin processes of financialization and stagnation that have dominated the development of the U.S. economy in the recent decades. It is an essential read if the mea culpas and post mortems of ‘the experts’ faced suddenly with ‘a fundamental flaw’ in the logic of unregulated markets have left you demanding a more penetrating account of this crisis.

—Ramaa Vasudevan, Colorado State University

A must read! Here is an excellent guide to understanding the role debt overload and the stagnation of real economy played in the recent crisis, in the tradition of Sweezy and Magdoff.

—Michael Perelman, Professor of Economics, California State University at Chico

Author of Railroading Economics, The Invention of Capitalism

and The Confiscation of American Prosperity

The financial crisis of 2007–08, and with more certainly in store for 2009 and beyond, is one of the great calamities of modern neoliberal capitalism. But it should come as no surprise for regular readers of John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff’s writings over the past few years in Monthly Review. In a series of highly accessible and cogent articles, they have consistently explained both the build up to the crisis and its consequences. The Great Financial Crisis brings their ideas together in one place. It is compelling reading for anyone seeking to both understand and change the world we live in today.

—Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts-Amherst
January 9, 2009
Critique of Intelligent Design
Buy at Monthly Review Press

“Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present,” (co-authored with Brett Clark and Richard York, Foster listed first, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008), 240 pp.

Critique of Intelligent Design is a direct reply to the criticisms of intelligent design proponents and a compelling account of the long debate between materialism and religion in the West. It provides an overview of the contemporary fight concerning nature, science, history, morality, and knowledge. Separate chapters are devoted to the design debate in antiquity, the Enlightenment and natural theology, Marx, Darwin, and Freud, and to current scientific debates over evolution and design. It offers empowering tools to understand and defend critical and scientific reasoning in both the natural and social sciences and society as a whole.

Reprints:
- Reprint of chapter 5, “Marx’s Critique of Heaven and Critique of Earth,” Monthly Review, vol. 60, no. 5 (October 2008), pp. 22-42; Chapter 5.
Translations:

Arabic translations in Civilized Dialogue, issue 2498 (December 17, 2008), http://www.ahewar.org/ and Free Thought, March 3, 2010.
November 1, 2008
Marx’s Grundrisse and the Ecological Contradictions of Capitalism
“Marx’s Grundrisse and The Ecological Contradictions of Capitalism,” in Marcello Musto, ed. Karl Marx’s Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy One Hundred and Fifty Years Later (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 93-106.

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Marx famously wrote: ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circum- stances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past’ (Marx 1979: 103). The material circumstances or conditions that he was referring to here were the product of both natural and social history. For Marx production was a realm of expanding needs and powers. But it was subject at all times to material limits imposed by nature. It was the tragedy of capital that its narrow logic propelled it in an unrelenting assault on both these natural limits and the new social needs that it brought into being. By constantly revolutionizing production capital transformed society, but only by continually alienating natural necessity (conditions of sustainability and reproduction) and human needs.

Translations:
- Japanese translation by Horshi Uchida, 2012.
September 1, 2008
Naked Imperialism
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“Naked Imperialism: The U.S. Pursuit of Global Dominance,” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006), 192 pp.

(Consists of previously published articles/chapters from Monthly Review between 2000 and 2005 with a new preface by the author.)

During the Cold War years, mainstream commentators were quick to dismiss the idea that the United States was an imperialist power. Even when U.S. interventions led to the overthrow of popular governments, as in Iran, Guatemala, or the Congo, or wholesale war, as in Vietnam, this fiction remained intact. During the 1990s and especially since September 11, 2001, however, it has crumbled. Today, the need for American empire is openly proclaimed and defended by mainstream analysts and commentators.

Editions:
- Indian edition (Delhi:Aakar Books, 2006).
Translations:
- Japanese translation by Watanabe Keiko, published by arrangement through Sakai Agency, 2009.
- Korean translation, Renaissance Publishing Co. Korea, 2008.
- Preface translated into Bangla in Bangla Monthly Review, no. 1 (December 2006). Translated by Indrani Nandi.
May 6, 2006